A
final year student of the Nmandi Azikiwe University (NAU) Akwa is facing
charges of forgery, stealing and fraud after he was arrested alongside a tricycle rider for
allegedly hacking bank accounts of big companies and diverting millions of
naira into personal accounts.

According
to the police, the accused belong to a 3-man syndicate allegedly led by a 400
level Environmental Science undergraduate student of NAU identified as Patrick
Nwafor who is on the run. However, before the gang was exposed, they had
succeeded in hacking into a law firm’s account with the UBA and diverted
N8million. The police arrested the undergraduate identified as Ebuka Orumba a
400 level Computer Engineering part-time student and his accomplice, a tricycle
rider one Ator Kalu after the gang had diverted the said amount and attempted
to withdraw the money.

The
suspects who were charged at an Ikeja Magistrate court by policemen attached to
the Special Anti -Robbery Squad Ikeja on a five count charge bordering on
forgery, stealing and fraud however said they were lured into the crime by
Nwofor.

Narrating
their roles in the gang, Orumba in his confessional statement to the police
said “Nwofor and I are friends in school. Nwofor sold the idea to me and he
told me to recruit Ator. Nwofor is the brain behind the hacking. I acted as a
facilitator. I don’t know much about the hacking stuff."

Narrating
his role in the gang, the tricycle rider, Kalu, said “I know Orumba from
Anambra. We are childhood friends from the same village. One fateful day, I had
issues with my tricycle and I needed money to fix it. I went to Orumba to help
me with money but he told me that he can give me a job to help me with my
problem. Orumba took me to the licensing office at Ojodu Berger Office where he
helped me to obtain a fake driver’s licence with the name Engineer Asukwo John
Okoro. He gave me N2, 500 to open an account 2O86943174 with Zenith Bank.
Orumba told me that Nwofor will be paying some money into the account. After a
while, Orumba told me to go to the bank and check that some money has been
deposited in the account. I went to the bank at Mushin to check but when I
asked the branch manager, he told me that N3million was in the account. I
screamed as I had never expected such huge amount. I was trying to inform
Orumba about the money but the bank manager told me that network was slow and I
could not withdraw the money. He told me to wait a while but to my shock, the
branch manager was suspicious and he handed me over to the security in the
bank. I was arrested and our gang was exposed."

According
to police investigation, the gang allegedly hacked into the account of the law
firm Simmons Cooper Partners and diverted N8million which they moved into three
different accounts with fake identities and documents. The police
investigations further shows that the gang opened the accounts with the name
Chief Ndumanya Raphael where they diverted N3million into an Access Bank
account number 0047148640. They allegedly diverted N2million into a GTBank
account number 0164661104 with the false name Barrister Tochukwu Gospel Okika
and another N3million was diverted into a Zenith Bank account 2086943174 with
the name Bar. Asoquo John Okoro.

The
accused who were arraigned on September 2nd however pleaded not guilty to all
the charges. The magistrate Mrs. O.O Olanipekun granted the accused bail in the
sum of N250,000 each and remanded them in prison custody.